Canadian First Nations TREATY MAP INDEX

Click Treaty NumberClickable List follows map.

English (and some French) treaties preceded Canadian ones. These will be found on another map page that deals with the treaty situation up to 1763. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 which defined Indian country in what's now Canada as well as the U.S is the subject of another map that lists a few of these earlier treaties. Because of the U.S. Revolutionary war, and establishment of a new nation to the south (by the 1785 Treaty of Paris, in which neither side noticed either their Indian allies nor Native land rights), treaties prior to this date are with England. Canadian treaty-making began in the 19th century. By the British Canada Act, pre-Canadian English treaties with native Nations are supposedly honored.

19th-century Canadian treaty-making started in 1850, in the east, and with the 14 Douglas Treaties of British Columbia. But it mostly got under way after:

1867 - The British Parliament passes The British North America Act creating the Dominion of Canada. Section 129 of the Act confirms that the Canadian government is bound by Imperial (British) legislation, including the 1763 Royal Proclamation which protects sovereign Indian land. Approximately 80 treaties with Native Nations had been signed by the English prior to passage of the North America Act, all of them are valid and to be honored in law through this Act. There is also a great variety of legal documentation, in which Crown authority asserts protection and defense of Native land and rights where no specific treaties with the Natives were made to that effect. Patriation of the Canadian Constitution, and the separation of Quebec, thus destroys the entire legal underpinnings -- this 200 years of Crown authority and documents -- of Native lands and sovereignty and consequently has been opposed by most First Nations.

Canadian Indian Treaties, Alberta University Library Guides. Includes most treaties in facsimile, many pertinent documents, books, theses, studies. Some are on microfilm. Seems to be a major treaties info collection and a good starting point for serious legal and historical researchers who can go there

Thanks to James Lindsey, a teacher at Otetiskiwin Kiskinwamahtowekamik (Footprint School), for the additional information of the treaty transcription project.

GREAT LAKES OJIBWE TREATIES: The first group included the Robinson-Superior (RS, 1850 ) treaty with the Ojibwe, along the north shore of Lake Superior. That same year the Robinson-Huron (RH, 1850) treaty was made with Ojibwe along the north shore of Lake Huron, that is, continuation of the same land and much the (culturally) same peoples just east. The Manitoulin Island Treaty (MI, 1862) with the Ojibwe and Odawa was signed 12 years later.
The WT, 1923, (Williams treaties) treaty area represents overlooked bands -- Ojibwe, Missisauga -- whose treaties were not made until 1923.

ROBINSON-SUPERIOR TREATY, 1850 -- Ojibwe. Unlike the numbered treaties -- this is not a trans-Canada railroad treaty. It is one of 3 around the Great Lakes made 20 years earlier. These earlier treaties are prior to the 11 numbered Western treaties that came about when the trans-Canada railway project was in the offing. Transcribed by INAC

MANITOULIN ISLAND TREATY, 1862 -- with Ottawa (odawa) and Ojibwe. This treaty diminishes an early one (1836) in which the whole of Manitoulin Island was to be reserved Indian land. The plan was to confine shores Indians on the large island -- but they didn't go there. So this treaty takes for white settlers much of the better aeas of Manitoulin (shores, streams where mills had been built) and allots parts in severalty. (The Eastern Islanders wisely rejected allotments.) Indians being moved off good land they have improved as farms or mills are to be paid for their improvements. Transcribed by Otetiskiwin women.

TREATIES 1 AND 2, 1871 -- Both with Ojibwe and Cree, south of Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba, in Manitoba. on the same long page, transcribed by INAC.

TREATY 3, 1873 -- Ojiibwe. just north of Minnesota, includes the Rainy Lake area. This doc has a map evidently of the reserve lands, drawn at the end of it. Poor copy, hard to make out. Transcribed by INAC

TREATY 4, 1873 -- with Ojibwe, Cree, Assiniboine -- across the southern part of Saskatchewan. Transcribed by INAC

PG COMMENT: These treaties are to clear the way for the trans-Canada railroad. They all crossed an area where a vigorous Metis culture had formed through French-Indian intermarriages. Metis were omitted from the treaties, and their land rights later were ignored, leading to the first and second Riel (Manitoba) Metis-Indian uprisings, for which Riel was first elected to the provisional Manitoba government formed by the victorious rebels, then hanged in 1885, after failure of the second uprising, when Canada moved in on the land. Maria Campbell -- in Halfbreed and a book of stories has written vividly of this history.

TREATY 5, 1875 -- Ojibwe, Cree from about the middle of Lakes Winnepeg and Manitoba north to the southwestern quadrant of James Bay, this encompassed most of the westerly portion of the former Rupert's Land Hudson Bay land grant. Transcribed by INAC

Adhesion, 1908, to Treaty 5 This adhesion does not add on a bit of land ceded under a main treaty (see the map for such an example in Treaty 6). It adds more bands who cede their claim to the same land as was ceded by others who also lived there in the main treaty earlier. In this case, Split Lake and Nelson House bands of Cree join in the cession of whatever claims they might have to that swame 133,400 square miles of land. They agree to go to whatever reserves have been designated for the Swampy Cree and Saltaux Ojibwe who signed the earlier main treaty. A second adhesion (more bands) was done in 1910. Transcribed by Otewtiskiwin women.

Manitoba Treaty Land Entitlement Committee -- Multitribal group is negotiating for Manitoba First nations who are covered by Treaties 1, 2, 5, and bits of 4 and 3. Reserves in Manitoba comprise 0.42% of Manitoba land. But none of the First nations was allowed to have even all of the minuscule amounts of land prescribed in these treaties for their Reserves. A map -- which doesn't show reserve outlines -- indicates that if they got those tiny add-on's, Reserve size would approximately double, and still comprise less than 1% of the land in manitoba.

TREATY 6, 1876--Cree, Chippewyan, Assiniboine; Across the middle of the Saskatchewan and Alberta prairies, encompassing what's now Prince Albert National Forest. See detail maps of the area and a brief history. I am astounded I cannot find a copy of this treaty, which seems to have been deliberately omitted by INAC from its treaties library (see link below). This treaty contains the "Medicine Chest" clause, which is of direct importance (and current negotiations both with Canada and in the United Nations) concerning the survival-critical matter of health care to reserve Natives. In the circumstances, INAC's omission of it can only be deliberate, in my opinion. It also seems to have been removed from a collection of transcripts of the numbered treaties made on-disk for commercial sale by Abenaki Associates and licensed to SchoolNet several years ago. It's never been in the SchoolNet database, and isn't among the Abenaki Associates-transcribed treaties menu now that's on the SchoolNet First Nations page.

TREATY 7, 1877 -- Blackfoot (Siksiska) Confederacy [Blackfoot, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee] and Chippewyan, Assiniboine . The southern part of the Alberta Prairie, west to the rise of the mountains, separating the plains-prairies from British Columbia. Treaty 7 Council prepared this interpretation (and their own transcription of Treaty 7). They have also collected the oral history of elders, and published a book, from McGill University Press that interprets the true spirit and meaning of their treaty. Transcribed by INAC, the other treaty-link was transcribed by Treaty 7 Council.

PG COMMENT: These treaties encompassed peoples -- mainly Ojibwe -- of the lakes and forest, then west across the prairie the Plains tribes -- mainly Assiniboine, Blackfoot Confederacy, Cree -- to the mountains, regularizing Canadian land title and confining treaty Indians to small Reserves, to ckear the path for the trans-Canada railroad. Who was "a treaty" and who was omitted from these first rolls was often a matter of chance, the rolls often divided families. And the rolls often deliberately omitted Indians who were considered troublemakers or didn't accept the Christian religion or ideals of becoming civilized.

NORTHERN TREATIES: At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, several numbered treaties were signed with tribes of northern Alberta province (admitted to Canada in 1905), Northern Saskatchewan (admitted 1905), Northern Manitoba (admitted 1912), and the northern or former Hudson's Bay land grant, of Northern Ontario (which had already been admitted to Canada, 1867).
These treaties are: Treaty #9 (Ojibwe, Cree; 1905; add-ons, 1929-30);Treaty #10 (Chippewyan, Cree, 1906).

NORTHWEST -- TREATY #11, 1921, a treaty was made for the western half of the Northwest Territories, including the southeast part of Yukon Territory, signed with Slave, Dogrib, Loucheuex, and Hare tribes.

Except for a few clean-ups (called adhesions or add-ons) Canadas treaty-making with native tribes. had essentially ended by the early 1900's. Inuit people received no treaties. The First Nations in most of the vast northern expanse east of James Bay had no treaties, and most of the First Nations in British Columbia did not.

Maritime Treaties: Land taken before the 19th century was either taken without any treaty-making or by British treaties, made with peoples of the Maritime provinces and New England in the east from 1693 - 1763 . In 1763, some eastern Canada land had been designated "Indian Country" in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Some of this -- white-colored land on the above 19th century treaties map -- is also subject to land claims and disputes. The Maritimes treaties are attached to the pre-Canada treaty map page showing the Royal Proclanation of 1763

RELATED LINKS

INAC's TREATY INDEX LIST -- it doesn't have any more treaties (now) than I've linked to here, fewer actually, but perhaps they will add some of the missing ones later. [Treaties have been added since 1997. KMS]

Canada-Indian Treaties -- Map Canadian Cartographic service offers large map with treaty areas and tabular data about them for school and other orders. This page will load very slowly; the on-screen treaty map is a 190K file that is blurry and illegible, and other slow graphics. There is no significant info here, so if you don't want to order the map, pass this time-waster by.

Maps for Sale -- here you can bypass most of the government mapping service's slow-loading graphics, and find both their treaty areas map and many more maps about Canadian Natives -- historical, populations, etc. You can even email them (get form by clicking order info) and perhaps they might reply to you (they didn't to me in 1995, 1996, and recently in 1997). Looks like some educationally useful maps if anyone could get them. Looks like you have to go to Ottawa to do so.

The John Jay Treaty, 1794, fulltext Settlement of the Revolutionary war between the new U.S. and England led to the need for border clarification between the 2 countries. At the end of the Jay treaty is a long clause in which both England and U.S. agree that Indian people can freely cross the border without interference from either government (customs, duties, visas, border stoppages). There have been disputes about the two governments' failures to honor this leading up to and since 6 Nations people asserted their rights and first closed the cross-border bridge in 1967 to protest that these rights of free crossing were being ignored. The Akwesasne Mohawk reservation is divided in two by the border, part of it under Canadian, part U.S. administration, with the name of St. Regis given the U.S. side in New York State, and Mohawks of Akwesasne at Cornwall -- Cornwall Island is divided by the border -- the Canadian side. Traditional leadership was supplanted by two separate tribal councils according to the different prescriptions of the U.S. and the Canadian governments.

NOTE: Some pre-Canada English treaties will be found on the Indian Country Royal Proclamation -- the Indian Country page on the menubar below. I would like to add the rest of these Canada 19th - 20th century treaties. If you know any place they are published on the web, please send me the URL. If you have a copy and can send me a disk (ASCII, not WP, either Mac or PC OK) I will post it here and attach it to this map.

CREDITS: The treaties map areas was devised from 2 main sources: the map sold by the Canadian National Mapping service (to which there's a link on this page), which was too large and fine-marked to be usable by scan or trace, and a black and white map devised by cartographer Molly Braun in Atlas of the North American Indian, Facts on File, NY: 1985. Upon the outlines of the treaty areas, I superimposed outlines of the modern Canadian provinces, for reference and orientation; I also colored the treaty areas and made the boundary lines much thicker. And of course made it an imagemap.